This is also second major transaction in the country’s broader online used car listings sector, with Jaipur-based CarDekho announcing a $110 million funding round earlier this month.

Truebil’s latest round, negotiations for which started in mid-2018, and which closed in late November, was led by Joe Hirao, founder of Tokyo-headquartered ZIGExN.

NEW DELHI: Mumbai-based Paix Technology, which owns and operates online marketplace for used cars Truebil, has raised Rs 100 crore in a mix of equity and debt financing, as part of its latest capital raising round.

This is also second major transaction in the country’s broader online used car listings sector, with Jaipur-based CarDekho announcing a $110 million funding round earlier this month, led by by its existing investors - Sequoia Capital, Hillhouse Capital, Google’s Capital G and Axis Bank - and which was the Indian startup ecosystem’s first $100 million-plus equity financing transaction in 2019.

Truebil’s latest round, negotiations for which started in mid-2018, and which closed in late November, was led by Joe Hirao, founder of Tokyo-headquartered ZIGExN, which owns and operates a number of classified websites, across segments, and including, automobiles, jobs and real estate.

Including this round, the company has now raised an estimated Rs 160 crore till date.

Incidentally, Hirao’s family office also led $30 million investment round in automobile marketplace and auto services startup Droom Technology in October last year. "Truebil’s existing set of backers, a list that includes, Kalaari Capital, Shunwei Capital, Kae Capital, Inventus Capital and Tekton Ventures have also participated in the Series B round of funding.

Additionally, venture debt firm Trifecta Capital has also pumped in an estimated Rs 10 crore into the company. Trifecta’s debt financing was first reported by VCCircle in November last year. Merisis Advisors acted as the financial advisor to the transaction.

Truebil will use the proceeds towards marketing, further building up its technology stack, as well as towards expanding its footprint across the country, according to co-founder Shubh Bansal.

According to him, the company, which is currently present in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi, and will be launching in five more cities, including the metros and tier-2 towns, such as Jaipur and Pune, among others. "We are currently selling over 600 cars per month and with our strong tech backbone we are making aggressive strides towards becoming the numero uno used car retailer platform in India,” Suraj Kalwani, chief executive of Truebil, said in a statement.

Truebil, which was founded in 2015 by clutch of former realty portal Housing.com and mining major Rio Tinto executives, while part of the used car listings sector, competes more with the likes of Mahindra First Choice and MarutiSuzuki True Value.

The three-year-old company closed financial year 2017-18 with revenue of Rs 50 crore, and Bansal is projecting a top-line run rate of Rs 250 crore for the current fiscal.

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